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Red-Labeled Map of Houston Shows Snide Comments You Can Make About Everyone Else’s Neighborhoods

Comedian Trent Gillaspie began his internet cartographic ventures by assembling an annotated map of his then-hometown of Denver, which he posted online hoping to highlight the humor in some of his gentrification-comedy routines with what he hoped would be considered outrageous labels for every neighborhood. “Some are judgmental, some are humorous, and all of them have a little bit of truth,” he explained to Business Insider earlier this year. “As long as you offend everyone you possibly can, it ends up making it OK.” Gillaspie then tried to open up his method to other cities — asking other comedians (and would-be comedians) to put together similar surveys of their own cities. A total of 47 labeled maps of various cities currently comprise the Judgmental Maps website, with varying levels of humor and “light racism,” as Business Insider’s Karyne Levy politely puts it.

The latest effort, submitted to Gillaspie’s website and tagged by its author, identified only as jr.ewing.78, targets Houston. We’ve sliced the map into thirds, for easier reading, below:

44 Comment

I will slightly disagree with the characterization of my neighborhood as “Used to be Jewish suburb, now barrio.” It’s still mostly a Jewish suburb with the barrio and the ghetto on the fringes. Many of these are pretty accurate, though.

This is actually quite good. I was all prepared to roll my eyes, instead I laughed my ass off. Seriously: Perfect. I loved the rich people and…more rich people –it plays on stereotypes, but still, they nailed us.

I’m a “Pretentious White Person” who used to be a “White Trash” who was also “close to good jobs but a shitty place to live”, yet I am either “married” or “like trains”, but I was where they label “cancer”. So I’ll think of myself not in the either/or, but in the and/both. So, I’m “Pretentious White Trash who likes Trains” (not married, nor have cancer…as far as I know).

This is pretty spot on. As a person that spends their days living near pretentious white people that like trains and driving to all ends of the city, I find this map extremely accurate. Sometimes the truth hurts. However, a person must gaze into the looking glass and realize that they have a gigantic, swollen, pre-eruptive zit upon one’s face. In this case, I would probably say it’s CANCER over the ship channel. We live in a very diverse city. That is our strength. It’s also healthy to recognize that there are a lot of blemishes. Yeah. I’m done.

Very funny and mostly accurate. I laughed audibly at “Cancer” but then felt bad about it. I shared with some coworkers who got a kick out of this, too.
I grew up in Meyerland which is labeled as “used to be Jewish suburbs, now yuppies.” I think by definition my husband and I are yuppies but we won’t be able to afford Meyerland for a long, long time! For now we’re relegated to Willowbend, which the map doesn’t label :(
I think the best part is “Matress (sic) Mac” on 45-N. Mattress has two Ts, though (or is it t’s? T’s? Too early for grammar).

as a “pretentious white person” i find this to be a bit lazy as most things just play off too easy race/economic signifiers. i mean, writing off the whole of the central inner loop as just rich people is a bit mistaken as there’s very specific differences between the likes of river oaks and west u. with very different slurs to go around. same for a lot of it.
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however, with that said, please oh please oh please make this the new image to go along with our “city without limits” campaign. the irony and contradictions would just be so much who wouldn’t want to move here.

Mattress Mack, SJL voters with guns, Not what it used to be, used to be suburbs now barrio, used to be Jewish suburbs now barrio, China men and their businesses, lived in all of these over the years. When Katrina Refugees moved in I moved out of Houston entirely. Not what it used to be applies to the entire map.

Fricking hilarious! I grew up in Bellaire (More rich people ) then Meyerland(Richish people) -still mostly upscaleish residents ; then resided in the Montrose area ( Gays /Hipster Douche Bags),then way out to Tomball & Klein ,Tx(More old houses that all look the same ),then back into town in the Binz(Doctors),now back to the Montrose area ; ( not so gay anymore due to all of the wanna be Hipsters / Douche Bags who got sucked up into buying / leasing WAY over priced crappy new construction (the future slums of Montrose & other Inner Loop /Near the Loop hoods ). Me I’ll take a circa 20′s /30′s /40′s home which were built to LAST.

“Fake Amusement Park” and “Can’t Afford to live in(the nice part of) Galveston”,eh? The park one is a point of view thing. Heck, it’s no Six Flags! And the second one, it just depends on if the people living near water with an even HIGHER chance of house damage from hurricanes. Plus the smell too… SEAWEED BREEZE!

This is funny…my old neighborhood is the “meth poor lower class suburbs, and it is!!! But, we loved one another and understood the meaning of community…we would always welcome one another in eachother’s meth labs! Hahahahaha!!! If the shoe fits, slap a label on it 😃